Especially in hot climates, garage temperatures rise significantly when doors are closed. Fumes from parked vehicles and stored volatile compounds can accumulate in unvented spaces. Both of these can cause significant problems for living quarters above garages. It is common practice to vent garages by partially opening the doors, leaving a gap under the unlocked door's bottom section. However, this may not result in adequate venting, and it poses numerous other issues such as rodent infestation, lack of security, flooding, entrance of blowing debris, etc. While venting solutions may be available (i.e. fans and screens that may be installed in any type of garage door), they require irreversible modifications to the door itself and may not be easily installable by someone unskilled in the trade.
Some existing devices open a top door panel, but they are not variable; they are either fully closed or fully open. They must be adjusted to the door frame. There are no provisions for attaching to a common automatic garage door opener. They require new holes to be drilled in the door. The differences in modern garage door designs (solid wood, hollow fiberglass, plastic, metal) require different structural solutions for these holes. Required new brackets are specific to the door installation, and do not work with some garage doors.
Further, the garage door environment is often dirty and humid, and door components can become covered with grime and corrosion. This can be a serious impediment to moving parts. Dirty hinges and other rotating components can bind, preventing movement of the door and triggering safety mechanisms. The more complex the rotation, the more susceptible the rotating component will be to binding.
What is needed is a simple, single-arc rotation universal, variable setting, adjustable, retrofit system easily installed and reversible that overcomes these and other problems.